Do These Macabre Pictures Prove Jeremy Bamber Is Innocent? He Is the Only Full-Term Lifer Who Refuses to Admit Guilt. Now a New Analysis by a Former MP Investigates Disturbing New Evidence over Murders That Shocked the Nation

Do These Macabre Pictures Prove Jeremy Bamber Is Innocent? He Is the Only Full-Term Lifer Who Refuses to Admit Guilt. Now a New Analysis by a Former MP Investigates Disturbing New Evidence over Murders That Shocked the Nation

Byline: Glen Owen POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT

Picture of sister's bloody foot which challenges case...

...and how suicide may have happened A NOTORIOUS prisoner is the victim of one of the worst miscarriages of justice in modern times and should have his conviction overturned, a former Tory MP argues in a compelling new book.

Andrew Hunter says that Jeremy Bamber, who has spent more than a quarter of a century in jail for shooting dead his adoptive parents, his sister and his two six-year-old nephews, has been the victim of 'questionable' police evidence.

Mr Hunter, who has been working on the Bamber case for the past ten years, says he has come across previously unconsidered evidence which suggests that the prosecution was seriously flawed. Furthermore, the former Basingstoke MP argues that recent revelations of police corruption - including the cover-up of the Hillsborough stadium disaster and the controversy over the resignation of Chief Whip Andrew Mitchell and the 'Plebgate' row in Downing Street - reinforces his demand to take a completely fresh look at the case.

Bamber, now 52, was convicted of the murders at the family's farm near Maldon, Essex, in 1985 by a 10-2 majority jury verdict.

He has strongly insisted on his innocence ever since - but until now has lacked such a high-profile public advocate of his case.

Bamber says his sister Sheila, who was a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic, feared having her children taken into care, suffered a psychotic episode and carried out the murders before turning the gun on herself.

But the police argued that Bamber must have carried out the murders because the gun had been fitted with a silencer, which made it too long for her to be physically able to shoot herself.

The police also said that if she had gone on a rampage her feet would have been covered in blood, which they said was not the case.

Now Mr Hunter says that after a 25-year fight, Bamber's lawyers have obtained a picture of the feet - which shows bloodstains.

And his defence team have also received new forensic results which suggest that burn marks on the back of Bamber's father, Nevill, had been made by the muzzle of a rifle without a silencer.

In addition, his team say that even if the gun had been fitted with a silencer, it would have been possible for Sheila to have shot herself. They have used an actress with the same length arms as Sheila to demonstrate that she could still have reached the trigger.

Mr Hunter says he has also unearthed evidence that the silencer produced as evidence in court had been claimed to have been found three days after the killings when, he alleges, it had actually been found nearly a month later.

He believes that the alleged extra time could have been used to add 'scratch marks' on the silencer, to back up claims - later used by the prosecution - that Jeremy Bamber had been involved in a confrontation with his father while trying to carry out the killings, which had led to marks on both the silencer and a wall in the house.

Mr Hunter argues that crime-scene photographs prove that additional scratches appeared on the wall in the days after the crime was committed.

Police had initially worked on the theory that Sheila, a model known as 'Bambi', had been responsible.

But they then put Bamber at the centre of the investigation after his girlfriend, Julie Mugford - whom he had two-timed - claimed he had confessed to her his plans to hire a hitman to murder the family. She named the hitman, but he turned out to have a castiron alibi and was released. Two years ago, Bamber's legal team thought they had made a breakthrough when a recently unearthed police phone log recorded a call on the night of the killings from Nevill.

The log, entitled 'daughter gone berserk', said that Mr Bamber had said his daughter had stolen one of his guns and gone 'berserk'. …

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Do These Macabre Pictures Prove Jeremy Bamber Is Innocent? He Is the Only Full-Term Lifer Who Refuses to Admit Guilt. Now a New Analysis by a Former MP Investigates Disturbing New Evidence over Murders That Shocked the Nation

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